Building Security In Maturity Model (BSIMM) member organizations are implementing a “shift everywhere” approach to perform automated and continuous security testing throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and manage risk across their complete application portfolio, according to Synopsys Inc.’s latest edition of the annual BSIMM report.

The report analyzes the software security practices across 130 organizations — including Adobe, PayPal and Lenovo — in their cumulative efforts to secure more than 145,000 applications built and maintained by nearly 410,000 developers.

Established in 2008, the BSIMM is a maturity model that observes and quantifies the activities performed by software security professionals to help members of the broader security community plan, execute and measure their organizations’ initiatives.

BSIMM data originates in interviews conducted with member organizations during a BSIMM assessment. After the assessment, observation data is anonymized and added to the BSIMM data pool, where statistical analysis is performed to highlight trends around how BSIMM organizations secure their software. 

In addition to its annual report, BSIMM provides members with a private community to engage with peers, learn best practices and gain new insights through community discussions, blogs, e-learning courses, webinars and more content focused on securing software in today’s dynamic business environment.

Conducted by the Synopsys Software Integrity Group, BSIMM13 highlights evolving trends among member organizations’ software security initiatives over the last 12 months, including:

1. Managing Software Supply Chain Risk and the Rise of SBOMs

Likely due to recent high-profile supply chain attacks, managing software supply chain risk — most commonly performed through identifying and securing open source software — appears to be a top priority for BSIMM member organizations. BSIMM13 reports a 51% increase in activities associated with controlling open source risk over the last 12 months and a 30% increase in organizations building and maintaining a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) to fully catalog the components within their deployed software. 

2. Integrating Security into Developer Toolchains 

As part of their efforts to “shift everywhere,” BSIMM organizations have made significant progress in integrating security options into CI/CD pipelines and developer toolchains over the last 12 months. BSIMM13 data notes a 48% growth in activities that enable organizations to include security tests in QA automation. 

3. Expanding Software Security Beyond Products and Applications 

BSIMM13 data also shows tremendous growth in activities that indicate security teams are working with operations to secure software that is not an application — such as automation created for CI/CD — as observations of activities for leveraging operational data for continuous improvement grew by 95% over the last 12 months. 

4. “Shift Everywhere” with Automated and Continuous Testing 

BSIMM13 data reports that 82% of BSIMM member organizations now use automated code review tools — ranking among the top-10 most-observed activities in BSIMM13 — which unlocks their ability to perform faster, incremental security tests and identify vulnerabilities as they are introduced throughout the SDLC. 

For more findings, download the BSIMM13 Trends & Insights report or the full-length BSIMM13 Foundations, which provides an in-depth analysis of the data and explores industry-specific trends.